It is said that everything we experience is nothing but the Five Lights; although that we only perceive everything as the 'solid matter' of the five elements, due to our habituation to karmic and impure vision.

I've recently posted the following excerpt by Vajranatha, which hints at some of this:

And in Skydancer: The Secret Life and Songs of the Lady Yeshe Tsogyel, Keith Dowman wrote something to the effect that a Dzogchenpa's (presumably who has completed at least the First Vision) everyday Vision would look like a hallucinogenic trip (i.e. we would begin to perceive everything as the Five Pure Lights of the Basis, as opposed to how everything appears to ordinary deluded vision as the 'solid matter' of the five elements) to ordinary people.

And I think that it's debateable regarding whether there are actually six or seven colors in the ordinarily-visible light spectrum. So Six (or Seven) Lights makes sense considering that. Some Occult traditions speak of Seven Elements and/or of Seven 'Rays'. So I've always wondered if mesoterically there are Five Dhyani Buddhas and esoterically there are Seven Dhyani Buddhas. The Five Dhyani Buddhas are all within the Sambhogakaya, so maybe the Dharmakaya and Nirmanakaya are each a Dhyani Buddha in themselves, making 'Seven Dhyani Buddhas' total.

I'm guessing that the answer to your questions is "both". Infrared and Ultraviolet Light for example are not ordinarily-visible to the naked eye, but they would both have to be encompassed by the Five Lights just like everything else is. Although given that the teachings speak of many dimensions, they would, by deduction, have to go more subtle than this even.

dakini_boi wrote:The main thing I was asking is - are the five lights - the actual essence of the elements - actually the same as pure colors of visible light? Or are they something more "subtle" than visible light?

ChNN says that it is not what we call "visible" lights. The same stands for the sound in Dzogchen.

"My view is as vast as the sky, but my actions are finer than flour" ~ Padmasambhava ~

dakini_boi wrote:It is said that the nature of the five elements are the five colors of light. Is this actual visible light, or something else?

The colors which the five lights express arise because of the adulteration of the five wisdoms with karmic winds or vāyus, without which the five wisdoms have no manifest expression. At the gross level, these five lights are expressed though delusion as the five elements.

Namdrol wrote:The colors which the five lights express arise because of the adulteration of the five wisdoms with karmic winds or vāyus, without which the five wisdoms have no manifest expression. At the gross level, these five lights are expressed though delusion as the five elements.

So then, the appearance of the five lights are still a manifestation of ignorance?

I was under the impression that the five elements appear because of misapprehension of the five lights, which are the elements in their pure nature - but what you wrote suggests the five lights themselves are also part of karmic vision - perhaps the refined karmic vision of bodhisattvas?

It's karmic vision when it is held on to - as though we are part of an audience and the play has a duration. It's pure vision when it's not held on to. When there is no time for it.

The Blessed One said:

"What is the All? Simply the eye & forms, ear & sounds, nose & aromas, tongue & flavors, body & tactile sensations, intellect & ideas. This, monks, is called the All. Anyone who would say, 'Repudiating this All, I will describe another,' if questioned on what exactly might be the grounds for his statement, would be unable to explain, and furthermore, would be put to grief. Why? Because it lies beyond range." Sabba Sutta.

Due to a lack of cognizance of the One, original purity isn't self-recognized as it's own intrinsic reality, and thus appropriation takes place in the manner of a catalyst.

The objective support is the colored lights (of the Ground's lighting-up), and thus by virtue of the causes and conditions of the subtle factor of duality there comes to be the objectifications involved in the karmic processes of cyclic existence.

Lhug-Pa wrote:And in Skydancer: The Secret Life and Songs of the Lady Yeshe Tsogyel, Keith Dowman wrote something to the effect that a Dzogchenpa's (presumably who has completed at least the First Vision) everyday Vision would look like a hallucinogenic trip...

Found it (see end of page 242 and beginning of 243):

Lhug-Pa wrote:...you might want to read part of this Google book preview of Sky Dancer: The Secret Life and Songs of the Lady Yeshe Tsogyel By Stag-śam Nus-ldan-rdo-rje, Keith Dowman, Eva Van Dam—that is, starting on page 241 (the following link should go straight to that page)—on the Dzogchen teachings of Guru Rinpoche Padmasambhava and the Four Visions (no actual Thogal instructions, just an explanation):

Like Buddhist said a page or so back, in Dzogchen there is also Lhun-drub or Lhungrub (and Sounds, Lights, Rays, Ngowo, Rangzhin, Thugs-rJe, gDangs, Rolpa, rTsal, rGyan, mDangs, etc.; not only the Emptiness aspect.